Technology

By signaling to oncoming traffic and vehicles approaching from the side, a front brake light provides an essential visual cue that a car is slowing down or preparing to stop. When the light is extinguished, it indicates that a stationary vehicle might initiate movement. According to Tomasch, this visual feedback can significantly truncate the reaction time for other road users, leading to shorter stopping distances and consequently diminishing the likelihood of accidents.

Sounds reasonable. Personally I just want front turn signals to be visible from the opposite side again.

Not selling tanks as cars could also help. Especially with fatality rates

Maybe redo the driving test like... At least every 20 years? There are people on the roads who got their licenses when their town didn't even had traffic lights. People who never saw a roundabout in their first 20 years of driving.

Its nice that we restrict young people by making them take more and more driving lessons and paying more for tiered licences, like we do in Europe for motorcycles and trucks.

But maybe also take a look at the 70+ year old grandpa who had two strokes and one heart attack, has two pairs of of glasses but his license says that he's perfectly fit.

I'd rather see mandatory rear running lights. The amount of people who can't be arsed to turn on their lights in bad visibility conditions is too damn high.

I still think rear signaling could be improved dramatically by using a wide third-brake light to show the intensity of braking.

For example -- I have seen some aftermarket turn signals which are bars the width of the vehicle, and show a "moving" signal starting in the center and then progressing towards the outer edge of the vehicle.

So now take that idea for brake. When you barely have your foot on the brake pedal, it would light a couple lights in the center of your brake signal. Press a little harder and now it's lighting up 1/4 of the lights from the center towards the outside edge of the vehicle. And when you're pressing the brake pedal to the floor, all of the lights are lit up from the center to the outside edges of the vehicle. The harder you press on the pedal, the more lights are illuminated.

Now you have an immediate indication of just how hard the person in front of you is braking. With the normal on/off brake signals, you don't know what's happening until moments later as you determine how fast you are approaching that car. They could be casually slowing, or they could be locking up their wheels for an accident in front of them.

Since we're all throwing random ideas out here, I want to equip my vehicle with an annoyingly loud external speaker so that when someone near me does something dumb, I can personally shame them.

How about reducing the brightness of headlights so I don't feel like the sun is driving at me at night?

Also, if the car is in drive the headlights should go into auto mode. Always see people driving with just parking lights on at sundown.

First of all, this would be illegal in many countries.

Second of all: we can differentiate cars by: has red lights, back.

If we lose this option we can no longer differentiate easily if there is a car coming towards us or driving away from us.

Reminded me of this Technology Connections video, in which the dude explained (among other brake-light related things) how some law allows electric vehicles to get away with not using their brake lights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YW7x9U5TQ

‘Here’s an idea: let all those around you know your status.’

‘Revolutionary!’

It’s weird we haven’t already done this, but good.

Wouldn’t better driving education and testing work just as well, if not better?

Don't worry, my fellow americans, we'll still manage to fuck it up.

I don't understand this at all. Why do I, as a person in front of a vehicle, care whether or not it's braking?

Definitely make it easier for people on crosswalks to start walking. Knowing that they are slowing down.

As a pedestrian this would be huge and make me feel so much safer.

I was having a very hard time seeing any possible benefit of a front brake light, since nobody accident prone ever looks in their mirrors.

I suppose in today's world of automatic transmissions that move the car forward whenever the brakes are released, they might serve some purpose at a four-way stop adding information about immediate intent of the other parties, but even there... that's more of a Darwinian situation where people who get into crashes at four way stops are sorting themselves out from the rest of reasonably competent drivers. If they're going fast enough for injuries at a four way stop, they deserve what they get. If they get a minor fender bender - that's a lesson to read the other traffic better next time.

Can I have indicators that are in the same place on all cars and not buried in the headlight? That'd be cool.